Update for those who are concerned about forum members in Paradise Ca

[CBlair]

Several people have commented about any forum members who may have been affected by the fires in Paradise Ca. There are two that I know of and have heard from. I decided to post about it here in the General forum.

Two members who have machine shops in Paradise Ca. are Matt@RFR and Reedprintice aka Jess. They both have professional shops in Paradise and they have both been effected by the fires. Jess has lost his shop completely, he posted a photo on his FB page, which I will not link to here. He is currently staying in a camper on a local ranch. His family is ok, last I heard he wasnt sure about his house but thought it might be ok.

Matt's shop survived by the slimiest of margins, some minor damage to fences and trim. However his house and vehicles and some of his families houses are total loss. Even if Jess and Matt can get to their houses or shop the local infrastructure is so badly damaged it could be months before they could get things operational. No power water sewer or town facilities, a terrible tragedy for all. However for now they and their families are safe.

They are both too busy to post much here and have said they would prefer some privacy for a little while. Please dont pester them with Private Messages or other contacts. They really have a lot on their plate and we should respect their wishes. I am sure there are many who know them who will help out where needed. Also I have no special way to contact them so if you need to get in contact with them for some reason you will have to try Face Book or some other method.

They both intend to rebuild and I am sure we will hear more from them after the new year.

Charles

 

[Fabworks]

Here is a local website with details of the fire.

The numbers of structures destroyed or damaged by the fire are staggering.

Camp, Butte County | YubaNet Fire News

 

[metalmagpie]

A well known and highly regarded bicycle builder relocated from Seattle to Paradise recently. He lost everything. Some kind soul put up a gofundme site for him to be able to start rebuilding and a lot of us from up here chipped in a few bucks: Fundraiser for Alistair Spence by Jim Gourgoutis : Lend A Hand To Alistair!

metalmagpie

 

[Fulcircleny]

I certainly wish them both (and any one else out there) the best for recovery, rebuilding, and getting past this without any further losses to them, or their families. God speed guys.

best wishes,
Chris

 

[Marty Feldman]

A considerate post, Charles. Thanks.

-Marty-

 

[Bill D]

My wishes go to those affected. I am about 150 miles south and the air quality here is 200 and going up.
76 dead, 1,300 missing
Bill D.

Thermal view of Paradise burning.

California's Deadliest Fire Is Seen Engulfing Paradise in 'Astonishing' Satellite Images


And smoke over California

https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/...-shrouded-in-smoke-from-the-ongoing-camp-fire

 

[Mike C.]

Legendary guitar builder Tom Charvel also lost everything. Shop, instruments under construction, tools, jigs, patterns, his home... everything.

 

[metalpyro]

Thank you for the update, Charles

I was afraid of this. There is very little left of the town.
It will take a long time to get going again.

If Matt or Jess read this, I'm in Sacto. If you need anything I have, it's yours. Material bits, tooling, or you just want to talk.

Prayers for those affected by this tragedy.

 

[TDegenhart]

I have nothing to give but money and sympathy but are there shops that either shop time or facilities to lend to these people? I am thinking of a way to keep their businesses going while they rebuild.

Tom

 

[thermite]

I have nothing to give but money and sympathy but are there shops that either shop time or facilities to lend to these people? I am thinking of a way to keep their businesses going while they rebuild.

Tom

This is a wide-ranging disaster. The spindle-time out of state, out of financial reach, and their customers may be in the same sort of hurt.

Rebuild, yes. Same hazard zone? Climate going WORSE, not better going forward?

Not I.

Trauma is still weighing too heavy for objective thinking, I am sure. Humans are just not quitters, anyway. Stubborn, rather.

Not until it makes good sense to do something "other" when an ocean is too high to sandbag, winds too high to resist, floods too deep to ford, or a fireplace a poor choice as home.

Not once in a hundred years. Several times EACH year, and worsening.

 

[CBlair]

I did hear Jess say he had found a building to rent in a nearby town and was going to work on getting equipment as soon as possible to get started filling his orders. Of course we know it could take a month or more but it sounds like he is able to make quick decisions and will be up and going in some capacity pretty soon. Of course it is still a setback that will take years to recover from. Thanks for all the kind words I am sure both will appreciate them when they have more time.

The town had many artisans of different kinds living and working there. I also noticed on a google map street view they were paying $3.58 per gallon for regular, guess that is like a paradise tax? Good enough for all of us to remember it could be us tomorrow. Good night.

Charles

 

[Matt@RFR]

I had a big reply typed up, went to attach a picture and the fucking thing locked up solid, so now that I'm tired and cranky, you get the short version and some pictures.

We left early, was not able to get to the house before it burned. My dog comes to work with me, and my wife took off as soon as I asked her to. The people sticking around trying to save their pictures and putting on makeup (no joke) either died or put themselves and their families in massive risk of death. (EDIT) It's my opinion that no possible evacuation plan could have kept people from dying in this fire, but some people really act stupid when stress levels rise.

Nobody we know has a house left except our next door neighbor! But an interesting side effect, he won't hardly talk to me because he feels so guilty about having a house. I told him he's being a pussy, and that he just owes us a bunch of BBQ parties as we rebuild the house. Got a laugh and hopefully he's cool now, but I felt really bad for him. He was hit harder than people who lost their houses.

Here's a map with Jess' shop (green), our shop (purple), our house (yellow) and the very rough start point of the fire (red, top right corner). It's 8 miles as the crow flies between the start point and our house, with very rough terrain and two major canyons between, and the house was on fire almost exactly 2 hours after it started.



Here's a 1 mile x 2 mile view of our shop location. This is a map that either the Sheriff or a fire service is making of every structure in town. Each little house represents a major structure (commercial, house, detached garage, etc.). Red is "destroyed", orange is "major damage", yellow is "minor", green is "affected" and black is "unaffected". Most of the structures around us were other metal buildings, and then there was a mobile home park behind us (to the right on the map) that is literally flattened.
(EDIT) Our shop is circled in blue. And the blank areas of the map are not unburned. They have just not been logged in to the map yet. The map changes a couple times a day I think.



And here is the North exterior wall of my shop. This is the definition of "Lucky":

 

[Matt@RFR]

Here's our house. My truck is in the picture, and you can't even see the toy hauler with the race car in it... it's all a puddle on the ground. Note that there is not one tree that burned. That tells you a lot about how hot and fast this fire hauled ass through town.



And here is Jess' shop. I didn't ask, but I'm betting he doesn't care if I post a picture of it. He's a very pragmatic guy.



Regarding other shops picking up our work. There's no nice way of saying this, but no shop we have tried so far is capable of our quality. We are temperature controlled and have been working with small details, small tools and tight tolerances long enough that it's just not a big deal, so our prices tend to be too low for other shops to want to do the work anyway. I don't mind sending prints to people that think they might be able to help, but this is not work you just jump in to not knowing if you can do it or not. We are talking with our screw machine shop (a member here, I can never remember his handle) that has milling, but we'll see if he's comfy trying or not.

 

[CBlair]

Thanks for finding the time to post Matt, your description of how fast it moved is amazing. I am sure most of us have no idea of that. Good luck with everything and post here your progress when you have time to do so. I am sure the process of recovery will be more stressful than we could imagine.

Charles

 

[Street]

There has been fires out here a few years ago that destroyed houses, after they brought in new rules on what types of houses can be built in those areas. Fire resisting structures.
The rebuilding time is when to think about what can you do for it not to happen again.
Was there lots of dry leaf litter around that could be cleared in the future? creating firebreaks essentially.
or did it burn from the canopy and type of tree that in the local area is a problem. Was embers in the wind a problem?
If they where pine trees they sure can burn very hot.
Can you make the structure ember resistant in the future if this was the cause.

Probably have lots on your plate at the moment but would hate to see it repeat in a few years time.

 

[Jaxian]

I hope you guys are doing the best you can to get through this intact. The damage is just devastating to see. My brother lives in Lincoln south of you guys and they have been staying indoors and his kids have been at home as they closed all the schools because of the air quality.

To give some a scope of this fires size here is a picture from my driveway of my neighbors front yard. That is not fog. Middle of the day 240 miles south of Paradise. My parents are old enough they were told to say inside because of the air. I see the pictures and just pray people are ok.



I don't know much about fire types. How did it burn everything but the trees? Was there something on the ground that it used as fuel? Just wondering what it was using to move. I just assumed it was all trees. Just embers that burned the most flammable stuff then moved on?

I hope you all are safe.

 

[Ox]

It's 8 miles as the crow flies between the start point and our house, with very rough terrain and two major canyons between, and the house was on fire almost exactly 2 hours after it started.

THAT is unimaginable to go from nothing to grow and travel that far that quick!

I've not followed the news to speak of, but I have heard it called "Campfire" fire.

A) Was it literally started from an out-of-control camp fire I take it?

B) Have there been burn restrictions?
It would seem that if it was dry enough to travel that far/fast that there would have been a "no-burn" policy in effect.
B 1) Did they not check Smokey Bear Dot Com before leaving on their vacation?

C) What time of day was this 2 hour period?

D) How long from the time that you even knew that there was a fire at all, 'till it was knockin' at your door?

I would hate to lose our old pics. Less concerned about other stuff at the house.
I would MUCH rather lose the house as the shop! Either from disaster or financial constraints.

Hopefully you can find a gen set and git back to business.

It really sounds like Jess hit the dirt runnin'. Maybe he had some back-up files at home? The machine would be lost, but they can be replaced quickly and easily. But the dedicated tooling is a nother matter. I wonder if he was able to save the broaches? From the looks of the building, I'm guessin' that they would be identifiable, but worthless? Or maybe they could go back through heat treat and sharpen and be saved?


I too don't understand the whole tree thing either? At first I thought that you meant that they weren't burned to the ground (*normal from forest burns that I have seen) but in the pic(s) it seems that there is still green left on at least the one tree. (not much color contrast in either of your pics - understandably) Maybe the green trees are disiduous and the pines ARE all burnt?


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Get Well Soon Eh!
Ox

 

[Rob F.]

THAT is unimaginable to go from nothing to grow and travel that far that quick!

I've not followed the news to speak of, but I have heard it called "Campfire" fire.

A) Was it literally started from an out-of-control camp fire I take it?

B) Have there been burn restrictions?
It would seem that if it was dry enough to travel that far/fast that there would have been a "no-burn" policy in effect.
B 1) Did they not check Smokey Bear Dot Com before leaving on their vacation?

C) What time of day was this 2 hour period?

D) How long from the time that you even knew that there was a fire at all, 'till it was knockin' at your door?

I would hate to lose our old pics. Less concerned about other stuff at the house.
I would MUCH rather lose the house as the shop! Either from disaster or financial constraints.

Hopefully you can find a gen set and git back to business.

It really sounds like Jess hit the dirt runnin'. Maybe he had some back-up files at home? The machine would be lost, but they can be replaced quickly and easily. But the dedicated tooling is a nother matter. I wonder if he was able to save the broaches? From the looks of the building, I'm guessin' that they would be identifiable, but worthless? Or maybe they could go back through heat treat and sharpen and be saved?


I too don't understand the whole tree thing either? At first I thought that you meant that they weren't burned to the ground (*normal from forest burns that I have seen) but in the pic(s) it seems that there is still green left on at least the one tree. (not much color contrast in either of your pics - understandably) Maybe the green trees are disiduous and the pines ARE all burnt?


-----------------------

Get Well Soon Eh!
Ox

Not sure on cause but maybe it was a power line. Started at 6:30am whole town burning at 10:45 am.
Here is the same link from above gives a more details:
California's Deadliest Fire Is Seen Engulfing Paradise in 'Astonishing' Satellite Images

 

[EmGo]

THAT is unimaginable to go from nothing to grow and travel that far that quick!

It's happened many times before in California. It has to do with weather conditions and the wind. All these areas that are burning up now have burned up before. In fact, California has a bunch of plants that only germinate when triggered by a fire.

The big difference is, now people live in areas that used to be wild.

 

[sfriedberg]

I have heard it called "Campfire" fire.

A) Was it literally started from an out-of-control camp fire I take it?

B) Have there been burn restrictions?
It would seem that if it was dry enough to travel that far/fast that there would have been a "no-burn" policy in effect.
B 1) Did they not check Smokey Bear Dot Com before leaving on their vacation?

It's the "Camp Fire", Ox. IIRC, it's named after the Camp Road which is where it started.

Absolutely, positively, 100%, no-exceptions-allowed, unconditional burn restrictions, PLUS a Red Flag fire advisory in effect.